Share Price

So much of what people thought they knew about investing has been turned upside down in the last decade. Yet Linked-In Corp. showed this week that some things never change: Offer stock in one of the hottest U.S. companies in one of the hottest new industries and watch the public beat down the doors to get at it. Who says Americans have given up on the future? They clamored to grab a piece of it in LinkedIn. The initial public share offering of the Web-based professional-networking firm was expected to be a hit, and it more than lived up to expectations.

Discount chain 99 Cents Only Stores Inc. said it had received a $1.3-billion buyout proposal from its founding family and a Los Angeles investment firm to take the company private. Investors viewed the bid as a lowball offer and quickly pushed the stock price beyond the $19.09 a share offered by the Schiffer/Gold family and Leonard Green & Partners. Several industry analysts said they expected a higher offer to emerge for the company, based in the City of Commerce. Patrick McKeever of MKM Partners said a share price of "something in the low $20s would be fair.

Stock mutual funds just racked up their biggest quarterly advance in six years. Now, try finding investors who'll say they truly enjoyed the ride. The stock market's bounce in the three months ended June 30 triggered widespread relief after the fall and winter meltdowns. The average U.S. stock mutual fund rallied 16.8% in the second quarter and was up 7% for the first half, according to Morningstar Inc. Many foreign stock markets posted much stronger gains, after falling more sharply than U.S.

Regulators should consider requiring money market mutual funds to float their share prices rather than maintain the constant $1-a-share value that has made the industry a popular haven for investors' cash, the Obama administration says. The idea is mentioned in the wide-ranging plan released this week by President Obama to revamp financial-industry oversight.

Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. lost $1.07 billion in the fourth quarter, as the ticket-selling company that hopes to merge with concert promoter Live Nation Inc. had to take a huge impairment charge to account for its falling share price. Ticketmaster said Thursday that the loss amounted to $18.82 a share in the three months that ended Dec. 31. The $1.

Shares of WellPoint Inc. climbed after it became the latest insurer to report a steep profit drop but dumped no fresh bad news on investors wary of the sector. The nation's largest insurer by enrollment said it earned $331.4 million, or 65 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, down 61% from $859.1 million, or $1.51, a year earlier. Revenue fell 3% to $15.07 billion. The company, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states, said its membership fell by 288,000 to 35 million in the fourth quarter compared to the third as employers cut jobs.

Starbucks Corp. said nearly 7,000 employees may lose their jobs because of a new round of store closures and cost cuts as it reported Wednesday that its profit dropped 69% in its fiscal first quarter. The company plans to close 300 underperforming stores around the world by the end of the fiscal year in addition to the 600 it already planned to close in the U.S. The company has already closed 384 of those stores. The additional closures could result in the loss of 6,000 in-store jobs.

As the stock market continues to founder, more companies -- especially tech firms -- are looking for ways to bring relief to workers whose compensation is largely tied to their employers' share prices. In January alone, more companies have offered to exchange or reprice stock options that have little chance of quick payoffs for their owners than in all of 2007, research firm Equilar Inc. said Friday.

Shares of Apple Inc. were on their way to a gain Tuesday when a website reported that Chief Executive Steve Jobs was in "rapidly declining" health. The company's stock sank from about $88 to $84.72 within minutes of the report, which cited an anonymous source and was posted on the Gizmodo technology website. The shares then recouped about half of their loss to finish the trading session at $86.29, down 32 cents for the day.

Battling rumors that it may collapse, Pasadena-based IndyMac Bancorp acknowledged Monday that its financial position had deteriorated but described the fears as overblown and said it was working with regulators to improve its "safety and soundness." IndyMac, a national home lender burned by the mortgage meltdown, went public after depositors lined up at San Gabriel Valley branches starting Friday to pull out their money.